Barely three years ago mobile TV was very much flavour of the period. DVB-H was seen as a likely winner of European-influenced markets, while South Korea was seemingly seeing spectacular enthusiasm for its mobile TV technology (S-DMB and T-DMB). Today’s story is very different.

Most European telcos (other than Switzerland, Holland and Italy’s ‘3’) have effectively abandoned plans for DVB-H, while at the same time using limited enthusiasm to push expensive 3G bandwidth as a means of accessing TV signals. BSkyB in the UK has about 20 channels available via 3G.

Screen Digest (SD) reminds readers of this dramatic turn-around, saying operators in Spain, France and Italy “have expressed their unwillingness to adopt DVB-H” depending instead on their own network infrastructure. SD says that the mobile TV market has remained flat over the past 18 months, despite the 3G universe expanding by 150% over the same 18 months.

Worse, perhaps, even in those markets which have launched DVB-H uptake has been miserable, and subscribers measured only in the 10,000s says SD.

Bundle all this non-activity together and it means a downgrade of mobile TV expectations by Screen Digest. The numbers of unicast mobile TV subs (via 3G) is expected to triple over the next 5 years, mainly driven by events in France which SD says will have 64% of the European market by 2013. France is enjoying this relative success because of its bundling policy, combining mobile TV access in its high-end 3G contracts.

“Comparatively,” says SD, “the broadcast mobile TV market is set to stagnate during the next couple of years at about €42m, generated by 1.2m subs.”

3 Comments

Yes, operators will have to bundle it into packages in the way that auto mfgs bundle multiple features things into options packages today- the “sport edition” will have an unlimited data plan, mobile TV, premium location aware services, high speed video conferencing, etc.- all for an extra 8 Euro/$15 per month. Selling Mobile TV, whether it be DVB-H, FLO, or Mobile DTV will not fly by itself as a single service add on. Operators will need to bundle it in with other services, target it at their highest ARPU subscribers, and maybe, just maybe it will make it…in some, but not all countries.

The other problem I have with broadcast is that the consumer landscape has shifted. We are looking at three generations who are now comfortable with time and place shifting TV content. They want to watch “their TV” not scan a program guide or channel surf. That’s what their “parents” did, and it’s very old school!